


Where your heart is

by Oywiththepoodlesalready



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oywiththepoodlesalready/pseuds/Oywiththepoodlesalready
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzie moves in with Darcy. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where your heart is

If there was one thing that Lizzie was adamant about when it came to her upcoming move to San Francisco, it was that she was _not_ relocating because of her handsome and rich new boyfriend (how her mother's friends liked to refer to him) but because starting her business in a city like San Francisco made good, logical business sense – some might even say the city was _optimal_ for what she had in mind (and the handsome boyfriend might be an additional perk, but Lizzie saw no need in giving her nosy neighbors the satisfaction of admitting that).

And she was absolutely, definitely, most certainly _not_ going straight from living at her parents' home to living at William Darcy's home. She was a strong, independent woman, after all, and damn it if she wouldn't conquer living on her own in a flash!

 

 

 

So despite all of William's best efforts to convince her otherwise, before she knows it, she is piling box after box of IKEA furniture against the wall of her tiny studio apartment and shooing her boyfriend out the door. 

Lizzie plops down onto one of the boxes in lieu of a chair that doesn't need assembling first and looks around the living room/ bedroom / study combo that makes up the main living area of her apartment. It might not be exactly what one would call spacious and considering that she has to make do on a small budget, this is hardly the town center - in fact, over here town center seems to be a vague idea that Lizzie can only guess at when she stands on the edge of the tub and looks out the bathroom window, cocking her head to the left and squinting really hard. (Or at least those blurry pinpoints of gray are what Lizzie has declared to be the town center as an answer to William's dry question of “Lizzie, are we even still in San Francisco?”) And the kitchen might be a little outdated and okay, yes, she has to change buses twice on her way to work - but this is _hers_ , her very own little piece of space and damnit, she's going to enjoy it!

So she declines any offers of help with the furniture (it's IKEA – really, how hard can it be?) and insists that the first night in her own apartment must be spent actually _living alone_ and presses a quick kiss to William's lips before pushing him out the door. 

 

Three hours later, she has a small table and two folding chairs all set up and even though her nightstand is a bit wobbly, it manages holding up her alarm clock just fine and she feels pretty accomplished. Nothing a smart, hard-working woman couldn't figure out on her own, right?

Until, of course, she realizes that IKEA does not mean for a person to assemble one of their wardrobes single-handedly. So unless she grows another set of hands in the next two seconds to stop all of her brilliant plans from literally collapsing on top of her, she figures she might have sent William home a little prematurely.

And even though she technically likes the idea of spending her first night here on her own, an empty apartment without proper heating or internet or television or actual food that is not chewing gum is really only romantic in movies where there's an achingly beautiful soundtrack accompanying the protagonist looking wistfully out the window. In reality, looking out of the window gets boring rather fast. 

And although Lizzie told herself that the prospect of meeting William for breakfast the next morning would make her miss him less, it has technically only been four days since her graduation and she still vividly remembers the endless weeks of drifting off to sleep while revising her paper and waking up to an imprint of the keyboard on her cheek and the physical ache of missing him. 

The reality is that her heart doesn't care if she is scheduled to meet him for coffee and pancakes in ten hours; she misses him _now_ and it makes her swallow her pride and pick up the phone mere hours after rolling her eyes and telling him _she could manage on her own for one night, thank you very much!_

 

 

 

…

 

 

The first thing that manages to squirm itself into the home of William Darcy and stay there is so small that it takes Lizzie a few days to figure out it is missing – time that has made retracing steps an impossibility. So while Lizzie combs through the tiny room she calls her own only to come up empty-handed, the little pearl earring that was a graduation present from William stays safely hidden between the couch cushions where it has been lost in a rather heated make-out session after Lizzie's first official day in business. 

 

(They do find it eventually, years later when the pouring rain outside has made the building of a pillow fort a necessity to keep bored little children from jumping around on their daddy's tummy all afternoon and there's a slight hassle when William spots the pearl in the little one's chubby hand, already on its way to being eaten. Lizzie trades the pearl for a piece of apple and throws William a wide grin while securing it to her ear.)

 

 

…

 

 

It only takes Lizzie three weeks to figure out that everyone else was probably right. Even after three weeks, she can count the nights she has actually slept in the bed she has made William put together for them that first night after she begged him to come back on one hand (she can count the nights she has slept alone on one thumb. Business trip.).

Although she likes her own apartment – or maybe she mostly likes the _thought_ of it – his is just so much more practical. There's more space, there's an actual coffee maker instead of just instant, her commute is 34 minutes shorter (she timed it after a lengthy discussion about the practicality of her living arrangement, but obviously the result wouldn't have actually worked in her favor, so he still thinks she hasn't gotten around to it...) and William doesn't have to cower to fit underneath the shower head, so all in all: very practical indeed. And she has everything she needs. Even before she had permanently moved to the city, William had bought her a toothbrush, the extra sugary cereal she likes and her favorite kind of shampoo (which actually, is only like her third favorite shampoo, but she had been in the process of using it up before moving on to her _actual_ favorite shampoo when _I thought you were chinese_ happened and the memories its scent evoked quickly made it _his_ favorite, so she refrained from correcting him). Pajamas were mostly unnecessary or, if needed, one of Will's old shirts, so now Lizzie basically only went back to her apartment a couple of times a week to grab a change of clothes.

 

 

 

…

 

The biggest problem, as it turns out, seems to be Lizzie's insistence on not matching her socks when they come out of the dryer.

It never fails to amuse William how she still manages to look genuinely surprised to find that she has once again left the other half of a pair of socks at home and is either forced to wear non-matching socks to important meetings or, more often than she cares to admit, is faced with a grand total of only one clean sock in her overnight bag. 

After weeks and weeks of telling Lizzie that there is an easy solution to her problem – balling the right pair of socks up so the one won't lose the other – only to have her insist that it does something funny to the material which makes the socks less soft (which is clearly just a way to avoid agreeing with him), he decides to take matters into his own hands.

And so on a mild evening in late June, he opens his sock drawer and shifts his (perfectly balled-up) socks to the left to make some room for hers.

 

“There. At least keep the matching socks together in one place.”

 

His tone is carefully nonchalant with a touch of annoyed, but Lizzie did not just finish a degree in Mass Communication only to be lied to so easily. While his words convey indifference, his body language tells a whole different story. His shoulders are tense and rigid and the skin around his mouth twitches from the effort of keeping his smile hidden.

He is trying his best to make this as small as possible for her sake, but she can clearly see that this is a big deal for him and it takes everything within his power not to blurt out an offer to move in. Because he has offered before and she has refused before and they both know this is a step into the direction of what he wanted ever since she declared she would be moving to San Francisco and he is not about to let it be tainted with a few rash words.

 

And her heart flutters as she realizes that she has seen this drawer before. He has cleared nearly half of it by haphazardly sweeping his socks to the side and Lizzie could swear that this gesture that seems spontaneous and casual has been every tiny bit as planned as everything William Darcy does. Because the last time she was in search of a pair of thick woollen socks (she gets _very_ cold feet and William complains), this drawer was packed to the top with socks, neatly organized and stacked side by side according to color. And not only did he just shatter every last tiny bit of organization with his sweeping, but also … he must have taken nearly half of his socks out to make room for any sort of sweeping to happen.

 

But he is determined not to make a big deal out of this although he has probably been waiting for days for the dreaded topic of mismatched socks to come up again and she finds it so cute that she decides to play along. She unceremoniously picks up a handful of socks from her bag and dumps it into his drawer, where they spill out and mingle with William's. And Lizzie can see his fingers twitch as her bright pink polka-dotted sock wedges itself between two of his perfectly white tennis sock balls, but she quickly shuts the drawer and stands up on her tiptoes to thank him with a sweet kiss. 

 

 

…

 

 

After that, things just keep trickling in and taking up permanent residence at random.

 

She finds a beautiful quilt one day while perusing flea markets with Jane and since watching TV at her place means lying in bed under the covers, it ends up on her side of the couch at William's place.

 

 

She brings over Twister sometime in July for game night with Fitz and Brandon and it joins the Darcy family board games on the shelf in the living room, because really, between the bed and the kitchen table, there would never be enough place to play twister at Lizzie's.

 

 

The first actual piece of clothing (because obviously, socks don't count) to find its way into Will's closet is, strangely enough, a ball gown. Lizzie wore it to the first big charity event they were both invited to _individually_ and it ended up in a heap on the floor next to the bed for about five seconds before William was putting it on a hanger and placing it next to his tuxedos. Lizzie doesn't really have a need for it after that, plus there's no way the floor-length robe would fit into her closet without folding it, so it stays where it is for the time being. 

(After that, there's the occasional suitcase that gets unpacked at his place instead of hers after a business trip and soon enough a quarter of her clothes are folded and hung up neatly next to his dress shirts and suits and it makes the intervals between going back on a clothes run longer and longer. )

 

 

Then there's the ficus that Gigi gave her as a moving in present that had to be relocated in an emergency rescue operation to where it could actually soak up some sun in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows in WIlliam's living room and soon, wherever he turns, he comes upon some kind of knick-knack that belongs of Lizzie. The notebooks, papers, the occasional scarf or necklace and the endless supply of pens and text markers that she leaves lying around on any available surface makes it hard for him to maintain his accustomed level of order, but it reminds him of the fact that Lizzie is here, in his apartment, every day and it makes him almost relish the chaos she brings into his life. 

 

 

…

 

 

What proves to be the last straw is the day that Lydia comes to visit. 

Lizzie had promised to pick her up from the airport and bring her to her apartment to drop off the bags before they went out to lunch, but she is stuck in a meeting and as it turns out, if you're the one to summon the meeting, there is no way of getting out of it early.

 

_Sorry, Lyd, stuck in a meeting. Can I meet you at home? I'll text you the address. Cab fare is on me! ;)_

 

Lucky for her, there's a car waiting for her when she finally gets out and traffic is relatively calm for a Friday, so she arrives at the apartment only a few minutes after Lydia does. After a tight hug and a string of apologies from Lizzie, Lydia quirks her eyebrow at her sister and nods to the building behind her.

 

“I didn't realize you had recently come into money...any distant rich relative die that I don't know of?”

 

Lizzie frowns and is about to ask for clarification when she glances at the door behind Lydia and grimaces as she realizes her obvious slip-up. She feels the heat already rise up her neck at the smirk on Lydia's face.

 

“I thought we were going to your place. Or is that already in the past?”, she asks and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

 

Lizzie snorts to cover up her embarrassment and shakes her head.

 

“Nope, still very much living there. And we _were_ going to go there....I hadn't realized until now that I'd given you Will's address.”

 

And called it _home._

 

Lizzie can tell from the way Lydia shuffles her feet and decides not to push the issue that she isn't the only one who remembers. Sure enough, there's a quick smile on Lydia's face that leaves no room for awkward pauses and she hooks her arm through Lizzie's elbow as she drags her over to the elevator in the lobby.

 

 

Once in the apartment, Lizzie decides that Lydia should just stay in the room Gigi normally uses when sleeping over. No need to lug the bags all the way across town when there's a perfectly comfortable queen-sized bed here.

Lydia drops her bags as soon as she's through the door and takes a few steps into the living room. After a quick look around, she turns to Lizzie and nods approvingly.

 

“Nice digs. Darceface sure knows how to live it up, right?”

 

“It's not too bad”, Lizzie shrugs and busies herself with making tea while Lydia inspects the room thoroughly.

 

“Um, Lizzie”, her voice rings out behind her and a second later Lydia rounds the corner into the kitchen, eyebrows rising dangerously close to her hairline, “you sure you're not living here?”

 

Lizzie's eyes drop to where Lydia is holding out various items of proof: Her quilt, the old worn copy of _Through the Looking Glass_ that her Dad had given her for her seventh birthday and the mug that Lydia had painted herself in middle school as a christmas present and had brightly colored flowers and Lizzie's name on it. 

 

Lizzie snatches the mug from Lydia's hands and laughs it off, but she can't help the thought from niggling at the back of her mind all through lunch. 

 

 

It doesn't help that Lydia insists on actually seeing this other place that Lizzie keeps pretending to live at.

Because as soon as Lizzie turns the key in the lock, she realizes that she couldn't pinpoint the last time she was here for more than ten minutes and it becomes pretty clear when she opens the door.

The apartment only consists of one room, so it doesn't take more than a few seconds to take in that this place looks like it hasn't been lived in in months. Where her work and books and tea mugs litter every surface in William's apartment, the tabletops and counters here look sparkling clean save for the light layer of dust coating them. Her favorite books are missing from the bookshelf, half her closet is empty and the tiny cactus that she got from Jane on her last visit is rotting away in his pot.

 

“Oh.” 

 

The sound escapes Lizzie involuntarily. She is still standing in the open doorway, blindsided by what is so glaringly obvious all of a sudden:

She is living with William Darcy.

 

Lydia pats Lizzie on the back sympathetically a few times and sighs:

 

“Yeaaah. You, my dear sis, might pay rent for this place, but you're definitely not living here.”

 

 

…

 

 

And in the end, that's the deciding argument. Because as much as she wants to keep pretending that she's self-sufficient and living on her own, she _certainly_ doesn't have the money to pay for a place she never uses just because it fits the image she likes to have of herself.

 

So the day after Lydia leaves, William comes home to Lizzie cooking Mac and Cheese and three moving boxes on the floor next to the couch.

 

He walks over to the kitchen to kiss Lizzie hello and points to the boxes suspiciously.

 

“What are those?”

 

And because she knows she's going to make him so happy in a moment, she can't help but adopt the nonchalance with which he offered her the first bit of her own closet space.

 

“Oh, you know, just the last bit of my stuff.”

 

He looks momentarily confused and she knows he is looking for the catch in what she's implying.

 

“That's not...you have more stuff.”

 

She sighs and wraps her arms around his waist so she has to crane her neck to look up at him.

 

“Yeah, I thought so too. Turns out, most of it is already here.”

 

William goes really still against her and Lizzie is afraid he might have actually stopped breathing. He seems to weigh his words very carefully when he finally decides to speak:

 

“What exactly are you saying?”

 

She smiles at the slightly scared look on his face and presses a kiss to his heart. 

 

“I'm saying...it's time to get all of my stuff together in one place. At home.”

 

And the Mac and Cheese might be starting to burn, but there are three boxes of her things sitting in his – _their_ – living room and there is no way he is reading this wrong, so William swoops Lizzie up and kisses her until they're both out of breath and the fire alarm starts beeping. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically just my head-canon for how Lizzie moved in with Darcy. I hope you enjoyed! :)  
> Feedback makes the world go round (and makes me dance around my room with joy), so tell me what you liked and didn't like! :)  
> Thanks for reading! :)


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